☕She makes $40 million a year spilling the tea

She used girl gossip to fill up her wallet.

Author

Zachary Alabre
September 22, 2023

Her online magazine made her $220 million at the age of 27.

“I think the reason why people become entrepreneurs is because they don't want a typical day – I think I would go crazy if I had a typical day.”

- Daniella Pierson: Age 27, CEO of “The Newsette”

What’s up fam?

Your business boy Zach is back! This week we are taking a look at one of the most successful female entrepreneurs on the planet, Daniella Pierson, and her business The Newsette. The Newsette is an email newsletter and media company that focuses on women-related gossip and news like fashion, beauty, and self-care.

And in 10 minutes or less, you’re going to learn:

✔️How being bad at everything made her the perfect entrepreneur

✔️How Daniela used “clout hacking” to grow quickly

✔️How being vulnerable is her greatest strength

Daniella is the definition of a boss babe. I think her massive success can point back to her challenging upbringing and school life. Here are some of her accomplishments:

Daniella started The Newsette in 2015 when she was just 20 years old. She always thought that school was pointless, and that resulted in her pretty mediocre grades in college. She knew that no magazine company would hire her because of her low grades, so instead of applying to other magazine companies, she decided to make her own which turned into the Newsette.

Daniella began promoting her newsletter to other students on Boston University’s campus, and she grew to thousands of subscribers very quickly. She took a $15,000 investment from her parents, and in just 1 year her newsletter was making $25,000 a month from sponsorships!

Daniella spoke to over 15 potential investors to help The Newsette grow. Every single one of them laughed in her face, claiming the business would never work. Now her company is worth over $200 million, and she owns almost 100% of it.

Talk about a blessing in disguise!

I love underdog stories where people succeed and prove the haters wrong.

What I especially love about Daniella’s story is that she admits to sucking at everything when first starting her business.

So how did she take her lack of skills and flip that into millions of dollar bills?

1. Started from the bottom now she’s here.

Social media is wild.

With such easy access to the world, anyone can say whatever they want online.

So now it seems like everyone is an expert in everything.

And if you keep scrolling, they’ll show you how much money they make to prove they are successful.

Let me let you guys in on a secret…

Half of that stuff is fake.

You don’t need to be an expert to start a successful business.

In fact, you can suck at a lot of things and still be a successful entrepreneur.

Just take a look at Daniella Pierson and how she first built The Newsette.

When Daniella was a young kid, she hated school.

She always thought that the things she was learning in school were pointless.

And let’s be honest, she’s got a point.

When was the last time you used geometry at a job interview?

Because she disliked school so much, her grades dropped like the stock market in 2008.

This caused her to worry because her low grades would make it almost impossible to get a job.

So then she thought, “If no one will hire me, why don’t I try to start my own business?”

But she didn’t know what type of business to start.

So she got a piece of paper and wrote down everything she was good at.

But there was a problem.

The paper stayed blank because she wasn’t good at anything.

Even my boy Sponge Bob got something on the paper!

So instead she wrote down what she liked.

And the first thing that came to her mind was magazines.

Daniella vividly remembers grabbing every single magazine on the shelf of Publix, and her mom telling her to put them back.

So she decided to build the magazine company she always wanted to work for.

But she didn’t have the money or resources to print and publish a magazine.

Daniella also noticed that a lot of emails that people got were very dry and not exciting to open at all.

So she decided to create a mix between an email and a magazine, specifically for women that curated the best female news and gossip that was sent to your inbox every morning.

And it kinda sucked in the beginning.

Her first subscribers were like:

Her first few subscribers complained about typos, boring stories, and formatting issues.

But as she continued to write, she became better at finding stories, curating them, and making her writing entertaining.

Since she was the only employee, she had to learn and build everything herself.

Through trial and error, she finally built a great newsletter product.

Her next step would be to start getting more subscribers to her newsletter.

And the way she finessed her way into getting her subscribers was genius.

The three keys to Daniella’s business being successful were:

1. She chose her true passion, which helped her put in the work necessary to create a great product.

2. She took a different angle at newsletters and found a niche audience, which was news specifically for women.

3. She did everything herself first, so that she could understand every piece of her business model.

Takeaway:

If you are not sure what business to start, ask yourself these two questions:

1. What do I love to do?

2. What comes easy to me that seems difficult to others?

Once you find the intersection between these two questions, you can have the perfect business model for you.

Having no skills or money when starting a business can be a blessing. This is because you can focus on being resourceful and find new ways to grow your specific skill set and business knowledge. If you are not sure how to structure your business, analyze one of your competitors and see where they are failing in their business model.

You don’t have to be an expert when starting your business, you can learn as you start your business. Daniella was not a good writer, nor a good researcher, but she learned and kept improving the product over time.

Make sure you build a business that you would want to buy from yourself. The reason The Newsette works so well is because as a woman, Daniella understands exactly what her audience would like to read about, so her audience is super engaged with her content.

2. Her network was her net worth.

Have you guys heard of the 6 people away theory?

It’s a theory that says all people are about a 6.6 degree of separation.

And no, I’m not talking about social distancing.

It means that you are 6 people away from knowing anyone on the planet.

The world is a small place, so networking can grow your business faster than you can imagine.

Daniella knew this, so for her first thousand subscribers, she used one of the most ancient technologies on the planet.

Facebook.

Seriously, even though not many people use Facebook anymore, almost everyone has one.

Daniela knew this, so to grow her brand she started to reach out to her old high school friends on Facebook.

And here is where the finessing began…

She told all of her Facebook connections that she was working for this cool new media company, and that if they helped promote it then they could put it on their resume.

But it was actually her company the whole time.

These people were considered “ambassadors”, and they were responsible for getting at least 10 new subscribers to the newsletter.

This method brought in thousands of subscribers for completely FREE.

You can’t get any cheaper than that!

This method got her foot in the door, but there was one method that took her to over 10,000 email subscribers.

And that is a method I like to call “clout hacking”.

This is using someone else’s name and reputation to grow your own business.

We see things like this happen all the time, just look at McDonalds.

They made a bunch of different meals sponsored by certain celebrities, like the Saweetie meal and the Travis Scott meal.

And Daniella would interview different inspirational women with a lot of followers to help inspire her subscribers.

How did she contact these women?

She just sent them an email asking for an interview.

She made sure to start with small creators who don’t get a lot of media attention at first.

Then her guest would use their network to recommend another guest, and her list of guests just began to grow and grow.

And the bigger the guest, the more people would tune in and subscribe to her newsletter!

This helped bring her newsletter to over 100,000 subscribers by the time she graduated college.

This method was genius for her brand because:

1. It gave her brand more credibility because her company would be associated with successful individuals.

2. As her connections grew, her newsletter would grow exponentially because these connections would have followers of their own.

Takeaway:

When starting your business, you don’t need to spend money on marketing. Instead, you should do the little things to get your first customers, and once you provide them with a great service, they will tell others and your business will grow through word of mouth, which is the BEST way to promote your business. When a friend or family member talks to you about how great a business is, they already have your trust so it’s an automatic sale.

When marketing your business, remember the number one thing that will make you grow exponentially. That is leverage. If you can leverage other people’s time and other people’s efforts, your business will grow on autopilot. And that is exactly what Daniella did. She had hundreds of students sharing her newsletter so that they could get an extra line on their resume. Think about a way to use other people to promote your product for you.

Credibility and trust are very important when marketing your business, and the best way to get credibility is to use someone else’s reputation. Find someone who aligns with your brand and your message to promote your business to exponentially increase your customer base.

3. She stayed relatable even with all her success.

Daniella’s company started to make over $1 million a year in 2019 from brands who wanted to advertise in her newsletter.

And I guarantee that she was feeling herself.

She probably felt what every guy feels after a fresh cut.

But here is the best part about Daniella and her brand.

Even though she is wildly successful, she built her business and brand around being open and relatable.

The reason she did this was because she struggles with mental health issues.

Daniella says that she suffers from ADHD, bipolar disorder, and depression.

She even admits that it was difficult to admit that, but she says it was important because it would help people take mental health more seriously.

I love this because being vulnerable does one thing for your business.

And that is build trust.

Think about it, when was the last time you bought from someone you don’t trust?

Probably never, because you don’t want to just give anyone your hard-earned money.

And the best way for someone to trust you is to be relatable.

3 ways to become more relatable in your business:

1. Be honest about the struggles you are facing with your audience.

2. Show your face as the CEO and leader of your company, so people know who they are talking to.

3. Make sure to spend time asking your customers for feedback on your product

Daniella started to do more interviews about The Newsette, and started to show a relatable personal brand in her company.

This one fact is what separated her newsletter from every other newsletter in the marketplace.

So sometimes on her personal Instagram, she would post pictures like these:

This is a really brave post, and it helps her audience build a strong connection with her.

If your customer feels like they know you, then they are much more inclined to buy from you.

Takeaway:

The most important thing in business is trust. If people don’t trust you or your product, you will never grow.

People begin to trust you the more they see you. If you and your brand are constantly being promoted online in front of your ideal customer, then over time people will start to recognize you and trust your brand more. The “Rule of 7” states that a potential customer must hear an advertisement from you at least 7 times before they take an action and purchase a product from you.

🎮You just leveled up your mindset today!

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Thank you for reading as always!

- Zach